New report on digital readiness in Higher Education

A group of CPUT academics are among the authors of a recently released report on digital readiness and using visual methods in Higher Education.

The report offers an overview of the teaching skills needed to face digital readiness during the pandemic, offering details about the pedagogical approach and methodologies to use, focusing on visual methods.

It is based on research from June to December 2021 within FutureAbility - Digital and transversal skills for online teachers, a two-year European-funded project under the Erasmus Plus Strategic Partnership. FutureAbility is a Strategic Partnership of nine organisations.

Assoc Prof Eunice Ivala, Director: Centre for Innovative Educational Technology (CIET), is the project leader representing CPUT. Dr SisandaNkoala, Senior Lecturer in the Media Department, is the project administrator. The other team members are Assoc Prof Candice Livingston, Head of the Department: Research and Postgraduate Studies; Assoc Prof Virimai Mugobo, Head of the Department: Retail Business Management; Rifqah Abrahams, Lecturer in the Media Department; Cheri Hugo, Lecturer in the Department of Design and Eran Tahor, Lecturer in Department of Film. Assoc Prof Daniela Gachago from the University of Cape Town is working on the project as a consultant.

“The project has three phases. The first phase was generating a report on the perspectives and experiences of educators who teach visual communication courses and use visual methods. This was based on a desktop study, focus group discussions and a survey of around 300 participants. The project's second phase, currently underway, is to create open education resources in online courses to address some of the gaps identified in phase one regarding the skills needed to teach online. The third phase, set for 2023, will be to roll out the courses and get participant feedback,” said Nkoala.

She said one of the key findings was that most respondents argued that the key challenges they faced teaching visual communication and using visual methods were a lack of student motivation, various technical problems and digital literacy.

Furthermore, the study found that online teaching exclusively harms courses and research that rely primarily on practices, as with visual communication-based courses. Online education and learning diminish the quality of interactions. As such, blended forms of teaching are foreseen as the most optimal approach in future by many professionals and students.

The project's next phase, which started in February 2022, is to develop courses to address these gaps and upskill lecturers to teach visual arts-related subjects and use visual methods online more effectively.

Nkoala said that in the short term, one of the key outputs from the study would be the development of online, open-access, multilingual courses that educators can take to upskill themselves on how to teach visual arts subjects and other subjects using visual methods in an online context.

The courses are being developed based on a literature review, focus group discussion and surveys with participants across the partner countries.

“The courses are being developed using design thinking principles which CPUT introduced to the partners. In particular, CPUT introduced the learning design through workshops based on our expertise as an institution in learning design. It is envisaged that any university can use the courses to train lecturers in this regard. The great thing about the nature of the courses being developed is that they are not solely for teaching visual arts courses but can also be used in any discipline which uses visual teaching methods,” she said.

Click here to read the report.

Written by Ilse Fredericks

Email: Frederickskennediji@cput.ac.za